As the Vermont Legislature and Governor Shumlin move to eliminate school boards, ban independent schools and severely limit school choice, parents and taxpayers will look for other options. The intolerable acts of the most recent Legislature will further centralize bureaucracy, increase education costs, eliminate accountability and diminish the parents’ voice in their children’s future. The stakeholders in our local schools will be silenced.

The elimination of local school boards is taxation without representation. The new marching orders from Montpelier are “Send us your children, send us your money and shut up.” What are the parents and taxpayers of Vermont to do? One of the instinctual needs for the human species is freedom. Freedom involves a voice in your future and it involves choices. As our taxes continue to be increased, our voices silenced and our choices eliminated, people will seek alternatives.

Home-schooling is one of those alternatives, at least until the Legislature bans that. Packing up and moving is another choice already being exercised by many of our friends and neighbors. There is another choice. This choice has not been banned yet. It is your choice to vote. Register at your local town office, volunteer for a campaign or even run for office to unseat the legislators and senators that are pushing this anti-liberty agenda.

Sitting on the couch and complaining about your tax bill, watching your money and your precious freedom being flushed down the toilet is also choice. Please do not make this choice. We need new folks in the Legislature that will respect the rights of the people and give us all some cover to tend to our own affairs.